Dapper O'Neil Archive 6/15/1977: Honey, have you met the City Council guys?

By Walter V. Robinson, Globe Staff

Wednesday,June 15, 1977

One of the men told Lisa Zankman she looked nice, and moments later advised her: "Get mad. I like to see a woman get mad."

Elizabeth Cook was "honey" to another man.

Claudia Delmonaco was assured that she has a "pretty smile, a nice smile" and was addressed as honey three times, as in: "Your explanation, honey, was not satisfactory."

The three women were not entrants in a beauty contest. Rather, they are City of Boston department heads who arrived in the City Council chambers yesterday thinking that their budget requests, not their physical attributes, would be surveyed.

And the two men were not contest judges, but budget judges: councilmen Frederick C. Langone and Albert L. O'Neil, who, as one colleague described it privately, "performed" at the Ways and Means Committee hearing.

The more than three hours of questioning, most of it by Langone, and much of that in a fashion described by one participant as "badgering," left the three women visibly angry.

Yet they were cautious in their public comments because they need council votes for their budgets.

"If I were a man, I wouldn't have been called "Honey' and "dear,' " observed Delmonaco, who administers the city's Little City Hall program with its 105 employees and who was repeatedly interrupted by Langone as she tried to answer his rapid-fire questions.

Zankman, who said the session was not unlike one a year ago when she was appointed head of the 100-employee community schools program, said: "He (Langone) does it to put on a show."

Cook, the director of the Office of Cultural Affairs, which runs the Summerthing program, said: "I've come to expect this treatment."

Councilman John J. Kerrigan, chairman of the committee, did little of the questioning. Kerrigan occasionally smiled at Langone's and O'Neil's questions and comments, yawned during other Langone's questions and left the chambers midway through the four-hour session.

Zankman had just begun her testimony when she was asked about the vacant position of assocaite director of the schools program. She said she had been performing the duties herself, adding: "It's been a struggle (doing two jobs) since Janaury."

"You look very nice for a girl who's had to struggle," O'Neil said with a smile. Zankman didn't smile.

Minutes later, Langone advised her to speak up, which O'Neil said would be easier if you "get mad, Lisa. I like to see a woman get mad."

"That's because he's not married," Langone responded. The spectators laughed. Zankman didn't.

In an interview later, Zankman found some solace: "At least they didn't call me "honey,' "

Delmonaco, during a 105-minute session defending her budget request of $1.4 million, smiled, prompting O'Neil to remark: "You have a pretty smile, a nice smile." And he added, apparently in reference to Langone's questioning: "I thought for a while you'd be shook up."

"Thank you, Councilor," was Delmonaco's noticably testy response.

During that questioning, Demonaco gave Langone a detailed explanation of several budgeted positions. He asked the question again, prompting this exchange.

Delmonaco: "I went over that."

Langone: "You went over it, honey, but you never explained it."

After more detailed explanations, Langone's figures still did not agree with Delmonaco's. John Losk, her deputy, told Langone, "I've lost you, somewhere," but attempted another explanation.

Of the Little City Hall employees, he said, all but 19 work in the field. Of the 19, five work in the mayor's office, and the rest in the 24-hour service and the central office.

"All right," Langone started, "so there are 19 in the central office."

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